Facebook shares its carbon footprint

Facebook today revealed for the first time information about its carbon footprint , citing the "power of openness." The data, covering the energy use for its data centers and global offices, reflects both the company's efforts to reduce energy use and increase renewable energy consumption, as well as the challenges it faces to steadily improve those efforts. "We’re releasing this data because we believe in the power of openness, and because we hope that adding another data point to our collective understanding of our industry’s environmental impact will help us all keep improving," the company said in a statement. At first glance it's a happy story. The company said that last year, its data centers and operations used 532 million kilowatt hours of energy, emitting 285,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. By contrast, Google revealed last year that its carbon footp...